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Austrian actor, aid leader Karlheinz Boehm dies

The Associated Press

Updated:
05/30/2014 07:23:21 AM EDT

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FILE - In this Sept. 10, 2009 file picture Austrian actor Karlheinz Boehm, is photographed during a photo call in Berlin. Karlheinz Boehm, an Austrian actor and human rights activist who founded an aid group dedicated to helping people in Ethiopia, has died. He was 86. Boehm?s group, Menschen fuer Menschen (?People for People?) said he died at his home near Salzburg on Thursday May 29, 2014. (AP Photo/Gero Breloer)

BERLIN (AP) — Karlheinz Boehm, an Austrian actor and human rights activist who founded an aid group dedicated to helping people in Ethiopia, has died. He was 86.

Boehm's group, Menschen fuer Menschen ("People for People") said he died at his home near Salzburg on Thursday. It didn't give a cause of death.

In the 1950s, the German-born Boehm starred alongside Romy Schneider in the television series "Sissi," playing Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria. He later appeared in Michael Powell's 1960 thriller "Peeping Tom" and in movies directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

In 1981, angered at the indifference of people in rich countries to poverty in Africa, he founded Menschen fuer Menschen. Its projects in Ethiopia have included efforts to build schools and hospitals. The group is now led by Boehm's wife, Almaz.